Custom and Convention
Outline · 2 ›
1.Custom as a force in human life and belief
William Harvey, On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in AnimalsVol. 38
- p. 112–113Only a passing reference to popular usage ('as the vulgar say') for the cause of fainting; the passage concerns ligatures and blood circulation, not custom.read · scan
1a.Custom as second nature
See also: Medicine 2b · Wealth 9a
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus AureliusVol. 2
- p. 280One place is like another; one accustoms oneself to it, as Plato says of city as shepherd's fold.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 124–125Lust served becomes custom, and custom unresisted becomes necessity: habit as a chain binding the will and warring against the new will.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, PurgatoryVol. 20
- p. 200Misguided wills that custom goads to evil transform the dwellers' nature.read · scan
- p. 234Custom serves as guide for the path; they turn right as they have always done.read · scan
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of ChristVol. 7
- p. 217–218Established custom is not easily relinquished and men cannot easily see through another's eyes.read · scan
- p. 226–227Custom is overcome by custom.read · scan
Sir Thomas More, UtopiaVol. 36
- p. 196–201Perverse custom makes men take bitter things for sweet, corrupting judgment of what is truly pleasant.read · scan
Martin Luther, Concerning Christian LibertyVol. 36
- p. 364Custom strengthens nature's perverse notion about works, making the evil incurable.read · scan
Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and MoralVol. 3
- p. 96–97Custom alone alters and subdues nature; habit formed by practice, intermissions and graduated discipline, though nature may revive when custom leaves a man in new circumstances.read · scan
- p. 98Custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, stronger than nature or words, shown in examples of Indian widows, Spartan lads and Russian monks.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkVol. 46
- p. 192–193Horatio says custom made grave-making an easiness in the gravedigger; Hamlet agreesread · scan
John Donne, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 308–310Custom, vice-nature, lets love's destiny stand, forcing him to love one who loves not him.read · scan
John Webster, The Duchess of MalfiVol. 47
- p. 819Necessity makes suffering constant and custom makes it easy.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 40Custom is our nature; the accustomed believer no longer fears hell, and the soul believes only in number, space, motion because habituated.read · scan
- p. 40–41Natural principles are only principles of custom; nature may be a first custom, custom a second nature.read · scan
- p. 41–42Custom makes men masons, soldiers, slaters; it constrains nature and produces all conditions of men.read · scan
- p. 124Men follow their mode of life because it is custom, not because it is good.read · scan
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning EducationVol. 37
- p. 10Custom hardens the face to cold; different peoples' practices show what use can accomplish.read · scan
- p. 11Custom explains why feet cope with wet and hands would not; poor children going barefoot are reconciled to wet by use.read · scan
- p. 13Practices of the ancient Germans, the Irish and Highlanders show children endure cold bathing.read · scan
- p. 16Parents misled by the custom of eating much flesh; the Romans fasted till supper and Augustus ate dry bread.read · scan
- p. 16Roman custom of a single meal resisted luxury; Locke stresses the great force of custom in diet and disease.read · scan
- p. 43Courteous bowing becomes as natural as breathing through constant use.read · scan
- p. 143–144Well-bred ladies speak elegantly by usage alone, without grammar.read · scan
- p. 175Custom and skill will bring men to delight in useful employments as much as in fashionable sports.read · scan
Daniel Defoe, The Education of WomenVol. 27
- p. 148–149Women's supposed folly is the fault of an inhuman custom, not their nature.read · scan
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality among MankindVol. 34
- p. 172Civil society's manner of living breeds diseases; the history of diseases follows that of societies.read · scan
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsVol. 10
- p. 42–43Nations keep using the metal first adopted as standard even after the necessity has passed.read · scan
- p. 43Usage in keeping accounts determines which metal counts as the standard.read · scan
- p. 44Which metal appears to be the standard is due only to the custom of keeping accounts in silver.read · scan
Oliver Goldsmith, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 522–523Custom turns rocks into beds of down; each state conforms life to its favourite good.read · scan
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulVol. 24
- p. 83Custom is called a second nature and affects us strongly only when absent.read · scan
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hermann and DorotheaVol. 19
- p. 367Nature gives pleasure in holding to the familiar and accustomed; every condition founded on reason and nature is good.read · scan
Charles Lamb, On the Tragedies of ShakspereVol. 27
- p. 301Habitual school recitation of speeches makes them stale and dead to the reader.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, An Address Delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity CollegeVol. 5
- p. 37Puritans found scope in inherited dogmas; creeds pass away and church-going becomes habit or social fellowship.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, New England ReformersVol. 5
- p. 256–257Studies became stereotyped as education through the drowsiness of usage.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English TraitsVol. 5
- p. 423Religion is accepted like marriage, as a settled institution people don't question; church blends into manners and almanac.read · scan
Hans Christian Andersen, TalesVol. 17
- p. 242–243Sisters find novelty fades and prefer home comfort; grown-up privileges become indifferent.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 199Custom is mistaken for nature; each age and country thinks its rules of conduct self-evident and needing no reasons.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the BeagleVol. 29
- p. 230Fuegians plunder Matthews and Jemmy's kin; civilized habits acquired cannot be kept among their savage countrymen.read · scan
- p. 232–233Jemmy reverts to native ways and taught his tribe some English.read · scan
- p. 437–438They refuse to cultivate, build houses or tend sheep, keeping wandering hunting habits.read · scan
James Russell Lowell, DemocracyVol. 28
- p. 468–470Men take the state of things they are born into as part of the natural order of the universe.read · scan
1b.Custom as the source of belief and inference
See also: Opinion 1b · Experience 2c · Reasoning 6a · Cause 2b
René Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking the Truth in the SciencesVol. 34
- p. 11Observing accepted customs of other nations taught him not to believe what rests merely on example and custom.read · scan
- p. 15–16Diversity across nations shows our opinions rest more on custom and example than certain knowledge.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 91Custom confirms belief as one of three sources: reason, custom, inspiration.read · scan
- p. 93Custom, more than demonstration, is the source of our strongest beliefs, making men Christians, Turks or soldiers.read · scan
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning EducationVol. 37
- p. 136Custom serves for reason; parents send children to grammar schools as they go to church, without asking why.read · scan
George Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and PhilonousVol. 37
- p. 236Hylas holds common custom is the standard of proper meaning in a language.read · scan
- p. 271–272Common custom authorises speaking of objects of understanding as in the mind.read · scan
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human UnderstandingVol. 37
- p. 308–309Custom conceals our natural ignorance, making familiar events seem knowable a priori.read · scan
- p. 321Custom is treated as a principle of human nature rather than social usage.read · scan
- p. 325Custom carries the imagination from present object to its usual conjoined object, exciting the feeling of belief.read · scan
- p. 329Customary transition from a present object to its habitual companion gives strength to belief.read · scan
- p. 330–331Custom effects a pre-established harmony between nature's course and our ideas, essential to human subsistence and conduct.read · scan
- p. 332–333Custom determines us to transfer the past to the future in proportion to observed frequency.read · scan
- p. 352–353The mind is determined by custom to infer one event from another.read · scan
- p. 372–373Custom alone leads animals to infer an object's usual attendant, producing what we call belief.read · scan
- p. 415Inference from conjoined objects rests on custom or instinct, which may be fallacious.read · scan
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulVol. 24
- p. 114–115Denies that nurses' tales of ghosts could make darkness terrible in all times and countries.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the BeagleVol. 29
- p. 159Local folk beliefs that rivers change small bones into large, or that bones grow, contrasted with Darwin's geological explanation.read · scan
- p. 264–265Chilean miners' fixed conviction that pyrites held no copper shows how received practice blinded them to a simple process.read · scan
1c.Custom, education and upbringing in forming character and faith
Virgil, The AeneidVol. 13
- p. 305Numanus describes hardy Italian upbringing: infants bathed in rivers, boys hunt and train for war.read · scan
Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of EpictetusVol. 2
- p. 153Frequent intercourse makes us become like others or change them; be cautious in intimacies, like coals or soot.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 10Behaviour tolerated in infants is intolerable in adults; habits are rooted out as one grows.read · scan
- p. 17–18Laments the torrent of human custom that carries the young along, making corrupt classical education normal and hard to resist.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, PurgatoryVol. 20
- p. 234He conformed to pagan rites out of fear, while Christian customs made him scorn other sects.read · scan
Michel de Montaigne, Of the Institution and Education of ChildrenVol. 32
- p. 59Spartans preferred to accustom youth to deeds rather than books.read · scan
William Harrison, A Description of Elizabethan EnglandVol. 35
- p. 382Learning makes wild men civil, rebels obedient subjects and evil men good Christians; without it barbarism follows.read · scan
Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and MoralVol. 3
- p. 98–99Custom in company is exalted by example and emulation.read · scan
Thomas Hobbes, Of Man, Being the First Part of LeviathanVol. 34
- p. 385Beliefs not backed by miracle rest on the custom and laws of the place of upbringing.read · scan
Sir Thomas Browne, Religio MediciVol. 3
- p. 253–254He notes a geography of religions, with each clime circumscribed by its doctrines, and denies that mere upbringing made him Christian.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 38Impressions of childhood custom and education compete with novelty; no natural principle escapes being called false impression of education or sense.read · scan
- p. 42Men follow their fathers' way, faith and condition through inherited prejudice that it is best.read · scan
- p. 49Praise of a clever workman or brave soldier shapes inclinations and choice of condition, making people sober, drunk, soldiers, cowards.read · scan
- p. 54A gentleman deems hunting royal sport, but a beater disagrees; opinion depends on station.read · scan
- p. 143–144Sceptics attack impressions of custom, education and country, which sway common folk.read · scan
- p. 202Pascal resists the prejudice of being born in Christianity.read · scan
- p. 294–295Men die for beliefs the Turks hold by tradition, not for what they have witnessed.read · scan
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning EducationVol. 37
- p. 48Company and the fashion of those about them most influence a child's carriage.read · scan
- p. 102Cruelty is a disposition borrowed from custom, example and fashion, which reconcile people to what humanity abhors.read · scan
- p. 127Most men hold opinions and ceremonies from country fashion and company practice rather than conviction of reasons.read · scan
William Penn, Some Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 364Divers liveries or outward forms hide the one religion of the good.read · scan
Benjamin Franklin, His AutobiographyVol. 1
- p. 6The eldest son always bred to the smith's business, a family custom; the surname taken up as others did.read · scan
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human UnderstandingVol. 37
- p. 355–356Differences of manners across ages and countries show the force of custom and education in moulding character.read · scan
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Profession of Faith of a Savoyard VicarVol. 34
- p. 282–283Diversity of worship arises from peoples adopting revelations; outward uniformity is only an affair of government.read · scan
- p. 283–284Birth and country determine one's religion, not choice.read · scan
- p. 284–285Footnote: people are made Jews, Turks or Christians by birth and nation before being men.read · scan
- p. 293Each sect has its own traditions, customs and prejudices, which shape its faith and must be considered.read · scan
- p. 300–302Different religions suit climate, government and laws of peoples and times.read · scan
Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)Vol. 21
- p. 330Lifelong habituation within the castle shaped her beliefs and maxims about power and obedience.read · scan
- p. 358–359His singular opinions are excused as errors of the age, an excuse that often means nothing.read · scan
John Henry Newman, The Idea of a UniversityVol. 28
- p. 36Students absorb the habits, manners and opinions of the metropolis and maintain their tradition.read · scan
Victor Hugo, Preface to CromwellVol. 39
- p. 381–382Says an age's manners, laws, fashions and superstitions mould its people like soft wax.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, WorshipVol. 5
- p. 275–276Religion reflects the culture of an age; Christianity meant European culture and marrying a pagan was thought a step toward the beast.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 212Accident of birth decides whether one is a Churchman in London or a Buddhist in Pekin.read · scan
- p. 233Later adherents inherit rather than adopt their creeds and rarely convert.read · scan
- p. 233–235Not one Christian in a thousand tests conduct by the New Testament; the standard is the custom of nation, class or profession.read · scan
- p. 235–236Believers look to Mr. A and B for how far to obey Christ, following habitual respect for the sound of words.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the BeagleVol. 29
- p. 267Clerical marriage strikes the women as an enormity, showing how local custom shapes belief.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the MastVol. 23
- p. 170Children of industrious Americans grow up Spanish; the 'California fever' of laziness attacks the second generation.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Twenty-Four Years AfterVol. 23
- p. 378–379California life changes a formal New England deacon's manner, so he puts off the deacon and becomes a human being.read · scan
Thomas Henry Huxley, Science and CultureVol. 28
- p. 212–213Educated Englishmen, shaped by school and university tradition, equate liberal education with Greek and Roman literature.read · scan
Hippolyte Taine, Introduction to the History of English LiteratureVol. 39
- p. 412Greek and Indian ways of life illustrate how habits, homes and creeds shape a people's literature.read · scan
- p. 421Conquest and climate impose new customs and capacities upon a people.read · scan
1d.Custom as the ground of justice and the controversy over its relativity
See also: National Character 5b
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 37–38Men judge by petty human habits and custom, mistaking the variety of times and places for mutable justice.read · scan
- p. 39Offences against human customs are to be avoided per local usage, yet God's command overrides any people's compact.read · scan
Thomas Hobbes, Of Man, Being the First Part of LeviathanVol. 34
- p. 373Ignorant men take custom and precedent as the rule of justice, appealing from custom to reason and back as interest serves.read · scan
- p. 412–413Men's tempers, customs and doctrines make their judgments of good differ.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 103Order of the world cannot rest on individual caprice.read · scan
- p. 103The general maxim that each follow his own country's customs shows justice is relative to place.read · scan
- p. 104Custom creates all equity simply by being accepted; its authority is mystical and destroyed by tracing it to first principles.read · scan
- p. 104–106Pascal holds that law must be presented as authoritative and its origin hidden; true justice is lost, so conformity to a country's customs serves as the rule of justice.read · scan
- p. 204Changeable variety of morals and beliefs across times and peoples.read · scan
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Profession of Faith of a Savoyard VicarVol. 34
- p. 271–272Despite diversity of worship and manners, all nations share the same notions of justice and good and evil.read · scan
- p. 272–273Rebukes Montaigne for using odd customs from travellers to overturn the uniform judgment of nations on justice.read · scan
Thomas Babington Macaulay, MachiavelliVol. 27
- p. 366The explanation lies in the moral feeling of Machiavelli's Italian contemporaries, who saw nothing shocking in his doctrines; censure came from beyond the Alps.read · scan
- p. 376–377Morality varies with fashion and association, being a taste rather than a science, as in Henry V versus Francis Sforza.read · scan
- p. 377–378Northern and Italian audiences would judge Othello and Iago oppositely, as Romans and Greeks differed, showing how moral sympathies are relative to national character.read · scan
- p. 382Each age has characteristic vices and changes its morals like fashions in hats and coaches.read · scan
- p. 388–390Italian moral code indulgent to political cruelties as expedient, unlike the invaders' national vices of intemperance, avarice and licentiousness.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, CompensationVol. 5
- p. 93–94Proverbs of all nations voice the universal moral law.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 116–118Distinguishes acts intrinsically bad from mere violations of conventions, good or bad.read · scan
- p. 159–161Mill discusses international morality and how it is legitimately modified by differences of times and circumstances.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 199Mill argues that popular moral sentiments derive from preference, prejudice, class interest and servility, not reason.read · scan
- p. 201Society's likes and dislikes have practically determined the rules of conduct enforced by law or opinion.read · scan
- p. 281–282Peoples' sincere customary feelings about clergy and worship are treated as varied, culturally relative standards of decency.read · scan
- p. 286–287Antipathy to polygamy among English speakers, though tolerated among Mahomedans, Hindoos and Chinese, reflects common ideas and customs.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the BeagleVol. 29
- p. 418Sexual morality is judged against the past customs of the islanders' grandmothers and European upbringing.read · scan
William Makepeace Thackeray, Jonathan SwiftVol. 28
- p. 10–11Loose morality and disordered public society of the age excuse men who grasped at opportunity, as in speculative manias.read · scan
1e.Custom and taste
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Letters of CiceroVol. 9
- p. 107Lavish public games with mules and bowls win the admiration of the vulgar but bring no delight to refined taste.read · scan
Pliny the Younger, Letters of PlinyVol. 9
- p. 343Pliny urges tolerance of others' amusements, admitting his dislike of buffoons is taste, not judgment; the note traces Roman decline into foreign luxury.read · scan
William Caxton, Prefaces and EpiloguesVol. 39
- p. 22–24Gentlemen's differing tastes about translation terms show usage shapes what is understood.read · scan
- p. 24Usage differs by region and by pretension of reputation, making writing hard to fit everyone.read · scan
Michel de Montaigne, Of FriendshipVol. 32
- p. 75Greek love between men is abhorred by our customs; women are judged unable to sustain friendship.read · scan
John Milton, Paradise LostVol. 4
- p. 87Modern poets carried away by custom into rime, to their own constraint.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 108–109Custom determines what is agreeable and equally what is just.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, Minor WorksVol. 48
- p. 414–415Custom and fashion strongly mingle with our passions and standards of beauty.read · scan
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's ProgressVol. 15
- p. 173Dislike of the book is compared to varied tastes for food; some may simply be so by nature.read · scan
John Dryden, Preface to Fables, Ancient and ModernVol. 39
- p. 168–169Words are not sacred landmarks; customs change and statutes are repealed when their reason ceases; usage rules speech.read · scan
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning EducationVol. 37
- p. 15Chinese foot-binding shows how a fashionable idea of beauty imposes harmful practices on women.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Preface to the English DictionaryVol. 39
- p. 183–184Anomalies once incorporated in usage can never be dismissed; some must be tolerated as imperfections of human things.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Preface to ShakespeareVol. 39
- p. 210–211His characters are unmodified by local customs, professions, transient fashions or temporary opinions.read · scan
David Hume, Of the Standard of TasteVol. 27
- p. 204Manners depicted differ between ages, Homer's ferocity and fraud versus Fenelon's refinement.read · scan
- p. 217Manners and opinions of one's age and country cause unavoidable variation in taste.read · scan
- p. 218–219Hume argues changing manners make ancient comedy and heroes less pleasing to moderns, and that innocent peculiarities of manners should be allowed by readers.read · scan
- p. 220Long custom makes it hard to alter one's judgment of manners and moral sentiments.read · scan
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsVol. 10
- p. 516–517Custom determines what counts as a necessary: linen shirts and leather shoes vary by country and sex because of decency.read · scan
- p. 522–523Decency requires linen shirts and leather shoes but not butcher's meat, which is not a necessary.read · scan
Edmund Burke, On Taste: Introductory DiscourseVol. 24
- p. 13Custom produces deviant tastes like preferring tobacco to sugar, yet the natural relish remains distinguishable from the acquired.read · scan
- p. 15Turks' opium, Dutchmen's tobacco, common people's spirits show how use and association form acquired tastes.read · scan
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulVol. 24
- p. 75Custom is listed as one possible source of proportion's power.read · scan
- p. 83Beauty cannot result from custom, though we are attached to habit; rare, new things strike us as beautiful.read · scan
- p. 119Custom reconciles us to everything; terror of black abates with familiarity though its original impression remains.read · scan
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Introduction to the PropyläenVol. 39
- p. 259Artist shares the public's training, needs and taste, so epochs are delighted by artists who mirror them.read · scan
Friedrich von Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of ManVol. 32
- p. 251Contrasts Greeks' bloodless athletic contests with Romans gloating over gladiators as shaping their ideal of beauty.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Prefaces to Various Volumes of PoemsVol. 39
- p. 270Habits of association and literary convention shape what verse promises in different ages.read · scan
- p. 282–284Metre rests on the concurring testimony of ages and shared associations, unlike arbitrary poetic diction.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Essay Supplementary to PrefaceVol. 39
- p. 311–313Accustomed taste and prejudice govern readers' estimates of new work.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The PoetVol. 5
- p. 164The lyrist's verse carries the ground-tone of conventional life, making him contemporary rather than eternal.read · scan
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, What Is a Classic?Vol. 32
- p. 121–122Middle ages lacked proportion and taste, ranking Ovid above Homer and Boetius equal to Plato.read · scan
Hans Christian Andersen, TalesVol. 17
- p. 248What is beautiful in the sea, the fish-tail, seems ugly on earth, where legs are thought beautiful.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Origin of SpeciesVol. 11
- p. 199–200Different races admire different standards of beauty, showing beauty is not innate or unalterable.read · scan
Ernest Renan, The Poetry of the Celtic RacesVol. 32
- p. 159Arabs, who buy and sell women, saw ladies presenting prizes as humiliation, showing how custom shapes views of women.read · scan
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